


we all fall down

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Healthy Communication is my jam, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mission, Bucky meets Steve at an after-party at Stark Tower, but he's not really in the partying mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we all fall down

Steve sees Bucky step into the room and his heart damn near jumps up into his throat. Bucky’s been okay lately, his recovery going well enough that Steve feels that swell of pride in his chest whenever someone asks him how his old friend is doing, and so soon after coming home too. There were days, of course, and sometimes there still are, where continuing to survive feels just as painful as the war he and Bucky fought back in forties. But those days are fewer and further between. But crowds, parties, those aren’t things Bucky exactly loves to deal with.

He comes with a button-up shirt (last time he’d just worn the same t-shirt he’d spent the whole day lounging around in) and a sports coat. He fights right into the crowd in Avengers Tower, but Steve can see Bucky’s awkwardness in the way his shoulders remain tense and he keeps his head down, just like he’d been told to do back when he and most of the 107th had been POWs.

He also keeps the sports coat on, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb, with all the women in cocktail dresses and the men with rolled up sleeves and loosening ties, especially now, a few hours after the alcohol started really flowing. Steve watches him sift through the people, unassuming, but clearly on a mission to find someone that he feels comfortable with: Sam, Nat, Clint even.

He sure as Hell isn’t looking for Steve—Steve learns that pretty quick—when he makes eye contact with Bucky from across the room and Bucky’s eyes only remain on his for a split second before they dart away, returning to his search for friends. Something’s wrong. Bucky’s angry. Steve could see it even the smallest moment that they’d locked gazes. He could see it in the way his glimmered with the adrenaline of heart beating a little too fast. He could see it in Bucky’s set jaw and the way his lips were pulled into a tight line.

Bucky takes a hard left so that his back is to Steve and continues through the masses. Steve looks back at the semi-circle of people he’s got in front of him. He was a part of their conversation at first, but had slowly retracted himself, speaking only when spoken to and nodding along as he felt necessary. His head hasn’t been in it. He hadn’t even really wanted to come to this party, but Stark had convinced him, saying that it was their M.O.

“We save the world and a few of its representatives buy us free drinks,” he’d said.

Steve had only nodded, hadn’t wanted to fight, and didn’t bring up the fact that, for Tony, none of the drinks were free. He’d bought the whole damn bar.

His head hadn’t been in much of anything lately. He’s just been feeling so damn tired. He feels himself going through the motions, as an Avenger, as a friend, but can’t seem to bring himself to do much of anything about it. He remembers Sam once telling him a bit about the symptoms of depression and how he’d said you could lose interest in things that had once been important to you, or feel apathetic to things you desperately wanted to care about. He remembers the check list, but business himself enough with missions and with Bucky to never actually apply it to himself, and swallows anxiety for breakfast, telling himself that he’s a superhuman, he fights evil on a daily basis, that pit of dread in his stomach is normal. It’s all normal. He’s normal, he’s normal, he’s normal.

“Excuse me,” he mutters, stepping away from the group of people. They feign a little disappointment, but Steve knows that they’ll get right back into it the second he leaves. He downs whatever’s left in his glass and leaves it haphazardly on the rim of the closest pool table. He looks through the crowd and can’t find Bucky anywhere.

He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out his cellphone. There’s an email from S.H.I.E.L.D that makes Steve literally feel ill with trepidation. He ignores it entirely, knowing full-well that if it was urgent enough, Nat would have found him in a second, hand on his elbow, and dragged him into a room for a debrief. He opens up his text messages and finds Bucky’s name.

_Where are you?_ he texts.

He watches for the ‘read’ notification as he wades past people towards the bar, wanting to find a big enough landmark so Bucky can find him easily. He pulls his hands towards his chest to make some room for a passing waiter, pressing the screen of his iPhone against his cotton shirt. The waiter apologizes, just the way a service worker always does, unessentially and profusely. Steve continues towards the bar, rests his elbow up on its mahogany and checks his phone again. Bucky’s read his message, but hasn’t replied. That’s unlike him. Bucky always has his phone close to him and when it’s Steve messaging him, he’s usually very quick on the response.

“What’s wrong with you?” That’s Nat. Always blunt and pointed. Steve groans and drops his phone back into his pocket before he looks up at her. She looks beautiful, not that that’s strange, she always looks beautiful. Her hair’s done perfectly, her skin smooth, and her gaze is as sharp as the damn wings of her eyeliner.

“Nothing,” Steve says with a sigh. He shrugs passively and then turns his attention to the bartender. He gestures for two drinks and the guy gets to work on them a lot quicker than he would for a regular customer.

“I know you, Steve,” she mumbles, sidling up closer to him at the bar. She takes her drink, sips at it, watching him over the rim of her glass. Now, it’s her turn to shrug. When Steve says nothing, Nat generally shrugs just to let him know that she’s right.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Steve says again, hoping adding more words to the sentence will make it seem like he’s putting more effort into making her believe him. “I’m just tired. Dyin’ to go home.”

“Then go,” she says easily. She raises her eyebrows and takes another drink.

“I can’t,” Steve says. He feels himself deflate as he says it and he does, he leans both elbows down on the bar so that he’s doubled over it. He’s doing a shit job at convincing Nat nothing’s wrong. “Buck just got here…”

“Barnes is here?” Nat interrupts.

When Steve looks at her, she’s surveying the scene around her. It’s unlike her not to know who every person in the room is. “Yeah,” Steve answers, and then shrugs conceding the possibility: “At least he was. He disappeared the second he walked in.”

“And that’s…” She’s not sure what Steve is implying, but she speaks carefully, as though she doesn’t want to cause any damage. “…Abnormal?”

“Yes,” Steve responds, breathless and exasperated.

Nat shrugs and finishes her drink. “I assume he disappears in every room he’s in.”

Steve snorts and looks down at the wood in front of him, hanging his head close enough that his chin nearly touches his chin. His smile feels fake, even to himself. It’s almost as though it’s bitter, like being able to disappear in any room is a skill he’s jealous of.

“Yeah, well, he at least usually finds me first,” Steve says and immediately regrets it. It sounds clingy and possessive, like Bucky can’t have a life outside of the relationship he has with Steve. He tries to see Nat in his peripheral vision, to see if she thinks he sounds that way too. Her eyebrows are knit slightly together and she swallows deliberately. Yep, she definitely thinks it does. Steve groans, shut his eyes tiredly and shakes his head. “That didn’t come out right. I just meant it’s different, that’s all. Tonight’s different.”

“Why?” Nat asks, quick as a whip.

“I don’t know,” Steve answers and feels genuine for the first time that evening. He takes a deep breath and turns his body to face Nat fully. He shrugs again, defeated this time, something beyond passive, if that’s even possible.

“Are you two..?” She leaves the question hanging and Steve’s not entirely sure what she was planning on saying. Broken up? Well, that would imply they were dating.

“Are we what?” Steve demands.

Nat studies him and then she smiles. It’s a deliberate smile: the smile of a spy. Whatever she had been going to say is long gone and she replaces it with: “Married. You act like an old married couple.”

Steve laughs, feeling surprisingly grateful.

He and Bucky’s relationship has always been complicated. They’d always been something deeper than friends. Steve hadn’t had very many friends growing up, but something had always told him that what he and Bucky had was different than what most people had. They’d acted on it, only a few times prior to the war, and it had become more of a regular occurrence since Bucky had found his way back in the 21st century. It had felt right, something that they both needed, but it made that complicated relationship of theirs turned into something that even Steve couldn’t fully understand.

“You’re right about one of those things,” Steve allows and Nat’s smile grows three sizes.

“Did you just make an ‘old’ joke about yourself?” Her voice sounds like a proud parent.

Steve laughs, hanging his head again and then nods. “I did, yeah.”

She gives him a little shove, smiling broadly, then she nudges her glass forward a little, indicating to the bartender that she’s finished. She smiles to him when he takes the empty cup and Steve can see exactly why she always tends to get what she wants.

“You know Wilson is M.I.A too,” she observes, which of course she does, Steve never would have noticed. He raises his eyebrows. “Where ever he is, I bet you Barnes is with him.”

Steve nods, feeling a little comforted by that, which, as he realises, had been Nat’s goal the whole time. “Yeah, probably,” he says, chewing on the inside on his cheek.

She reaches out and squeezes his arm reassuringly. “He’s okay, Rogers.” Steve nods along, knowing that he should. He has this sick, petty moment where he bitterly thinks that he doesn’t care whether or not Bucky is okay, because Steve’s not. He’s not okay, but being [i]not okay[/i] and Captain America are mutually exclusive. And that Nat’s talking again and Steve’s glad that she’s taking him out of his own thoughts. “And he’ll take you home if you ask him to.”

Steve looks up then and nods, knows she’s right. “I know.” And he feels honest for the second time. Nat seems to bring that out in him.

“I’ll let him know you’re looking for him,” she says, then she leans forward, presses a kiss to his cheek and disappears into the crowd.

Steve pulls out his phone and Bucky’s message him back.

_with sam. upstairs._

Steve looks up to the second storey of the party, looking for Bucky’s face amongst the strangers. When he can’t find him, he heads towards the stairs, taking them practically two at a time. He keeps a blank expression on his face, trying to look like he’s on a mission so nobody will slow him down. He can feel people’s eyes on him, but he ignores them.

Then, he sees Sam step away from the smaller bar situated up here. He’s got a drink in each hand: one’s a gin and tonic, that’s Bucky’s. He picks up his pace and sidles up next to San. The place is crowded enough that Sam hardly notices him until he’s right up next to him.

“Hey,” Steve says.

Sam looks a little startled, but covers it up pretty quick. ”Hey, man,” he answers. “I would have gotten you a drink if I knew you were up here,” he explains.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says nodding down at the drinks in Sam’s hands. “Your hands are a little full.” Sam shrugs, allowing that. “That Buck’s?” he continues, getting right to the point.

Sam looks down at the gin in his left hand, lifting it slightly, as though it’s the first time he’s seeing it and then he nods. “Yeah, apparently both his legs are broken.”

Steve laughs and nods. “Where is he?”

Sam juts his chin towards one of the wreck rooms along the back wall. Sure, crowds and Bucky don’t really mesh all that well, but he doesn’t usually avoid the situation altogether. That’s odd, that’s different. That’s another tally in the ‘something’s wrong’ column.

“You mind if I join you?” Steve asks and he feels a little nervous about what the answer might be. Sam swallows hard, takes a split second too long in looking back up at Steve, before he nods.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Yeah, of course. I’m not stopping you.”

Steve nods, feeling a little unwelcome, but the desire to see Bucky, to see and fix what’s wrong, is stronger. So he perseveres, he follows Sam towards a wreck room and just like it had when he’d seen Bucky walk in, Steve’s heart jumps again when he sees him up close.

Bucky’s lounging in a couch, one foot up on the lip of the coffee table in front of him. His metal arm is sprawled out across the back of the couch. He looks relaxed. He looks like he had before the war, as a young man, lounging on the ratty couch in Steve’s old apartment in Brooklyn. Sam’s always seemed to make Bucky relax, in a way, Steve bitterly thinks, that even he can’t replicate.

When Bucky sees Steve walk in, he takes his arm off the back of the couch, sits up a little straighter and clasps his hands together in his lap.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve mumbles and it feels like his voice gets caught in his throat.

Sam steps in front of him then and puts the gin and tonic down on the table, just where Bucky’s foot had been.

“Thanks,” Bucky mumbles back.

The room’s quiet, awkwardly so, and Steve feels the urge to just turn and run, run straight out of Stark Tower and back home to his bedroom where he can finally be alone.

Sam the one to break the silence: “You good in here?” And at first, Steve thinks he’s talking to him, but doesn’t really know why he’s asking. He furrows his brow, opens his mouth to say ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ and then Bucky speaks: “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Steve’s mouth snaps shut and he looks at Sam over his shoulder. There’s a flight or fight response deep in Steve’s gut that tells him that he’s being ambushed, but he tells himself, relax, this is Bucky, this is Sam. Nothing’s going to happen. They’d been talking about him in here, Steve can guess at that pretty easily. Bucky had gotten to the party and had gone directly to Sam to talk about Steve, what about Steve still wasn’t sure.

“I’m good too,” Steve says bitterly. “If you were wondering,” he adds with an impolite shrug.

“Look,” Sam says. His shoulders droop apologetically, but Steve knows there’s not getting out of this. “You got your friends worried, Cap. And you two need to talk it out.”  
“Don’t you think that’s something we should do on our own?” Steve says, trying but failing to keep his voice calm.

“Why do you think he came to me?” Sam asks and he’s talking like Bucky isn’t even in the damn room. And if there’s anything that shoots Steve’s anger from 0 to 100, it’s that. Enough doctors did that, enough people have spoken for Bucky over the last seven decades that he doesn’t need one more person to do, especially not someone who’s supposed to be his friend. He turns from Sam to Bucky, looking for something, looking for him to say that Sam’s right, that he asked for this, or maybe to stand up for himself, to say that he doesn’t really want this, but Sam had somehow convinced him that it was the right thing to do. (It probably is, but Steve’s so flushed with anger that now’s not the moment that he’ll understand that.)

“I wanted to talk to you, Steve,” Bucky says, slowly and quietly but it commands the whole room.

Steve feels the air get knocked out of him. That ambush he’d been thinking about, this is it. He steps towards Bucky, quickly and desperately, and then tries to correct his body language, wanting to look casual and collected, like Nat. “Then why didn’t you just talk to me?” He doesn’t want to sound accusatory, but something (pride, maybe) tells him to be on the defensive.

“I’m gonna go,” Steve hears Sam mumble from behind him, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Bucky. Bucky does. Bucky watches Sam leave.

The door clicks shut and then it’s quiet again. Steve counts his breaths, trying to keep them slow. He hitches his hands on his hips and keeps his eyes down on the carpet between his dress shoes. He can feel Bucky watching him, just like he could feel the eyes on him out in the party. His skin crawls and he wants to scratch all over. He swallows hard and just needs Bucky to talk.

“Sam told me you used yourself as bait again,” he finally says, and nope, he suddenly wants Bucky to keep his mouth shut. Steve inadvertently sighs, his hands dropping back to his sides. He throws his head back and then scrapes his palm over his mouth.

“I don’t want to have this fight, Buck,” he mutters through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want to fight you either, Rogers,” Bucky responds. He sounds so stoic, it almost makes Steve a little jealous. He’s emotional, he just needs to breathe. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t talk about it.” Steve crosses his arms over his chest, chewing on his bottom lip, and nods. “Can you sit?” And Steve can finally hear the emotion in Bucky’s voice: the irritation and desperation, and it makes Steve feel a little better. They’re both only human. So he sits. He sits about as far from Bucky as the couch allows and leans his elbows out on his knees. He holds his hands together, fingers interlocked, as though he’s praying and just waits—waits fro Bucky to keep going.

When Bucky doesn’t, Steve starts to feel that same itch across his skin, and opens his mouth, just to keep that feeling at bay. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I just want you to talk to me, Rogers,” Bucky says and his exasperation makes Steve feel like he’s being scolded. “You don’t talk to me,” he adds.

“About what?” Steve asks. Communication has never really been his strong suit. He’s gotten so used to allowing himself to fall into the background, answer only when needed and most strategic that he hardly knows how to open those communication lines himself.

“About you!” Bucky says, as though that’s easy. Bucky’s always been a talker, maybe not always that articulate, and a little nervous if the subject matter ever got too vulnerable, but he cared more about expressing his own feelings more than any kid from Brooklyn Steve ever knew. “About whatever the fuck’s going on in your head.”

“There’s nothing going on,” Steve mumbles, looking down at his hands.

“Bullshit,” Bucky answer quickly and brutally.

“I’m fine,” Steve says again, knowing full-well that he’s not being very convincing, nor is he really trying to.

Beside him, Bucky takes a deep breath. “You’re not, Steve,” he says. “Come on.” He leans closer to Steve, closing that gap between them. “What is with you?” he asks. “Why do you always think that you have to get through this shit on your own?”

“I’m not [i]getting through[/i] anything. Everything’s fine.” There’s that word again: fine. He’s used it so much, he can barely articulate what it means anymore. He looks up when Bucky doesn’t say anything. Bucky’s looking right at him. There’s a sad smile on his face.

“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” he says.

“Bucky,” Steve says, low like a warning, because he doesn’t even want to begin to explain what he might be lying about.

“And if you think I don’t know your tells, Rogers, you’re way off.” Bucky just keeps going. Steve rubs his forehead tiredly. “I’ve known you since you were a kid.” And Steve knows that he’s right. He’d never really been able to fool a whole lot of people. Some teachers and bullies here and there, but never Bucky. Bucky could smell a lie from a mile away. “Not to mention that I’m the most dangerous spy in the world,” he adds, a little lighter this time, always an eager one to get in and out of vulnerable territory as quickly as possible.

“You’re not dangerous,” Steve assures with a weak smile.

Bucky considers that, a faux-puzzled look on his face. “Arguable,” he decides. Steve laughs and drops his chin towards his chest. “I wanna help you, Stevie,” Bucky says. He shuffles closer on the couch, looking for something from Steve that he can just hold onto. “Always have,” he adds.

“You do help me, Buck,” Steve says. He turns his head to look right at Bucky and their faces are closer than Steve had thought they would be. Bucky’s craving something: connection, touch, and Steve’s desperate to give it to him.

“When I’m lucky enough to have you let me,” Bucky says. He’s smiling again and he gives Steve a little nudge. Instead of pulling away, he keeps his shoulder practically flush against Steve’s. Bucky had been craving this and Steve’s surprised to find that he had been too. Everything seems to fall into place with Bucky next to him. He forgets that he wants to go home, in fact, he forgets entirely that he’s not at home right now. Steve breathes in deeply and takes a plunge: “What do you think’s wrong with me, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs against him. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I’m no expert. But…” He pulls away and looks at Steve with a wry smile. “I guarantee you Sam’s got a whole file dedicated to how fucked up you are.”

“Shut up, no he doesn’t,” Steve answers with a laugh, and now it’s his turn to give Bucky a little nudge.

“He’s got one on me too,” Bucky replies. “A few miles longer than yours, if that’s any consolation.”

“You’re not fucked up,” Steve says, because that feels like what you’re supposed to say.

“See, that’s where we’re different, Steve-O,” Bucky drawls. Steve knits his eyebrows together, waiting for Bucky to elaborate. “I’m not in denial. I know what I am.”

“And I don’t?” Steve asks. He feels a burst of bitterness course through his entire body. “I’m Captain America.”

“Steve, I’m serious,” Bucky intones.

“I know you are,” Steve allows with a nod. He looks down at his hands and vows not to make any more jokes. “And I appreciate it, Buck, I do. But I’m okay.” Bucky doesn’t look convinced, so he adds: “Really,”

Bucky looks away, down at his hands and suddenly looks more solemn than he has all evening. “I’ve made a lot of things about me lately,” he says slowly.

And Steve’s never been one to allow someone to criticize Bucky’s recovery, even himself. He feels immediately protective, and if it had been anybody else saying it, he might have felt violently so. “You didn’t make it that way, Buck,” he says.

“Can you just let me talk?” Bucky demands. And that shuts Steve up real quick. Nobody talks for Bucky but Bucky, isn’t that something Steve has said? He waits patiently for Bucky to keep going, understanding that whatever is coming next has got to be hard. “You’ve spent a lot of time and effort on me and I love you for it.” Bucky pauses, looks up at Steve as though he needs approval to keep going. Steve keeps quiet, but he sets his jaw and nods minutely, urging Bucky to continue. “I just…” He’s nervous and Steve wants nothing more than to reach out and hold his hand, but he doesn’t. He keeps his hands to himself until Bucky makes the first move. Always. Bucky had a speech planned, Steve can tell and he can see the exact moment where he decides to throw the speech to the wind. Instead, he swallows hard and looks at Steve sharply. “You’re allowed to be fucked up too, okay? You’re allowed. That’s fine by me.”

Steve smiles graciously and honest-to-God means it. “Well,” he starts. There’s a frog in his throat that he tries to swallow before he continues. “I’m glad that I have your permission,” he finishes with a weak smile.

Bucky smiles back and then lays his forehead against Steve’s shoulder. “Then take advantage of it, you punk.”

Steve smiles to himself and remembers a conversation just like this. _The thing is, you don’t have to. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal._ He finds himself laughing at their own predictability.

“Til the end of the line?” he asks, finishing off the thought he’s sure Bucky had.

But then Bucky groans and buries his face deeper into Steve’s shoulder. When he pulls away, he runs his hand through his hair and his cheeks are pink. “I wasn’t gonna say that!” he defends. “God, we were so cheesy!” Steve laughs, loving the way Bucky’s mortification makes his eyes twinkle and the way his blush colours pink all the way down his neck. “That’s so embarrassing!”

“It got through to you, didn’t it?” Steve laughs.

Bucky nods and his smile goes a little serious, more meaningful. Then he leans forward and places a soft kiss on the corner of Steve’s mouth. That’s a first move if Steve’s ever seen one.

“Take me home?” he asks.

He feels Bucky’s breath against his cheek when he laughs. “You got it, Captain.”


End file.
